All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1949-1945 Max Hastings This is a study of the greatest and most terrible event in history, which shows its impact upon hundreds of millions of people around the world - soldiers, sailors and airmen; British housewives and Indian peasants ; SS killers and the citizens of Leningrad ; Japanese suicide pilots and American carrier crews. This is 'everyman's story'. It is an attempt to answer the question: 'What was the Second World War like?'